


Snake House

by deadlegato



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27790204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlegato/pseuds/deadlegato
Summary: Short horror-themed piece set in the Hazbin universe. A group of three teenagers go to explore an old Victorian house with a haunted history and find that some legends aren't meant to be messed with.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Snake House

The board over the first-floor window creaked as it was pulled away. It made a loud grinding sound as it slid towards the ground before it was caught, causing all three individuals to pause and hold their breaths. After a few minutes that felt like eternity, they determined no one had heard them, and cautiously set the graffiti-laden board to the side. “Be careful where you step, people always say there are a lot of snakes crawling around in here.”

Shoes crunched on broken glass as they hefted themselves through the window, whispering to one another to be careful not to get caught on the glass. “Keep your flashlights low. Last thing we need is for someone to call the cops,” the lead instigator, the one in the deep red hoodie, whispered. Navy and black hooded jacket clad individuals nodded in agreement.

The spacious house had stood since the mid to late 1800s, depending on what local lore you went by. The one thing everyone agreed on was that it had last been routinely occupied in the 1980s. Numerous attempts had been made to rehabilitate the property, even into apartments, but in time every potential occupant fled. The rumors that it was haunted by a massive snake-like creature or perhaps the ghost of a tall, thin man persisted throughout the town.

“This place is legit insane,” Navy hoody whispered. “Those stair banisters are carved like snakes!” They snapped a quick photograph with their phone.

“Watch the flash, watch the flash!” Red hissed in a low voice.

“All the windows are boarded up. No one is going to see us,” Navy argued back.

There was a loud creak overhead and all three jumped, then nervously laughed when they decided it must just be the ancient house settling. Black cautiously moved their flashlight around. Faded patches on the wallpaper showed where photos had been previously hung but had been long since removed.

“Local legend is that this place was built by some kind of genius inventor, but after his family was killed in a train accident he went crazy with grief and started devil-worshipping and doing all kinds of satanic shit in the house, including having parts of it rebuilt to honor the biblical snake,” Red whispered, testing the stairs to the second floor. “Still seems sold enough. You wanna go up?”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious whoever built or at least remodeled this place had a thing for snakes,” Navy agreed as they moved cautiously up the stairs, one at a time, testing for weak stairs. “Look at the pattern on the stairs,” Navy continued, using their sneaker to push aside dust. “It looks like scales.”

“Supposedly the higher you get the more of the original house exists because work crews always get scared out before they get much further than the main floor.”

“According to my older brother, after the Twine siblings went missing, the cops found a pentagram, a bunch of burned candles, and snake skins all over the basement.” The Twine family, those that had lived there in the 1980s, were well known in town mythology.

“Yeah but that was like… satanic panic days. They would have thought a wiccan symbol was satanic.”

Black had just moved to town. “Who were the Twines?” they asked.

“Family lived here in the 80’s. Dad, mom, oldest son, younger daughter. Dad had a thing for snakes, like, hardcore snake fan. Raised dozens of types, couldn’t get enough of them. Built the newer parts of this house. He moved here specifically because he’d heard about it being the snake house, rehabilitated the place, spending a fortune getting it back to original state. Only reason it’s still standing is he did such a good rework on it. Apparently, this caused friction with his son, who not only hated snakes, but hated the idea that his dad was spending so much money on the snake house. Whoa, wait, stop, stop. Look at that door frame!”

“It’s all carved snakes,” Navy said in awe. “I think it’s hand carved. I don’t care, I’m getting a photo of this. They do not build houses like this anymore. Why can’t people respect that?” Indeed, most of the walls were covered in the same obscene graffiti as had decorated the exterior boards. A few edge lords had run through painting “hail Satan” or their idea of badly rendered satanic symbols on nearly every flat surface.

A door slammed down the hallway and all three nearly jumped out of their skins. Black was ready to book it, but Red held them back. “There are tons of broken windows up here. There’s bound to be a draft pushing things around. Besides, running is the stupidest thing we could do right now. Imagine explaining to the cops how we fell through the floor in a place covered in No Trespassing signs.”

Navy turned around and fell backwards, slamming against the door they had been admiring. Red and Black looked at them in confusion. Navy laughed nervously. “Sorry, I looked up towards the third-floor landing and I thought I saw someone standing up there. Like a tall, thin guy in a top hat.”

“Mind will play tricks on you in a place like this,” Red nodded.

“I’m worried about running into some homeless freak, not a ghost,” Navy continued. They checked most of the second-floor rooms, but other than some rotted bedframes and chairs and decades of dust, it was mostly empty. Looters had already gotten here. Navy photographed several snake-themed gas lighting fixtures. It was clear people had tried to get them off the walls and failed. “This is supposedly the floor the Twine family actually used. The biggest room was supposedly the parent’s main bedroom, the smaller rooms belonged to the son and the daughter.”

“You said this family went missing?” Black asked Red.

“It’s spookier than that. See, a few months after oldest son turns eighteen, mom and dad are found dead, killed by bites from a rare cobra that apparently escaped its enclosure. Here’s the deal, though. The parents raised snakes for decades, before the son was even born. Never had a significant escape. Suddenly son, who hates the house, hates the snakes, becomes old enough to inherit the place and not only does a snake escape, it bites only the parents before disappearing off to never be seen again? Everyone in town knew the son was sus, but no one could prove anything. Son wants to sell the house, but will says his sister owns half of it, and she won’t agree to sell it. He’s doing everything he can to try to force the sale because his sister is a minor. Worse to her, he sells off all the snakes to someone who makes purses out of them. Not even to someone who would keep them alive.”

“Hey, hey!” Navy hiss-whispered from the third-story landing. “You both have to get up here! This is what I’m talking about!” Creaking up the stairs, the three reunited. “Look, original furniture. Original portraits! This isn’t 1980’s stuff, this is 1880’s.” Navy loved historical houses, and couldn’t have been more excited, snapping off photo after photo.

As Navy took one flash photo, Red jumped back. “You’ve… you’ve got me seeing things,” Red laughed, giving Navy a shoulder slug. “Now even I thought I saw a shadow of a man in one of the doorways.”

“Hey, listen!” Black whispered in alarm, grabbing Red’s arm. “Something is moving. Do you hear that? It’s like a dragging sound. It’s coming up the stairs!”

“This place is full of broken windows, I already told you that. It’s bound to be full of weird sounds.”

The three turned their heads in alarm when a sound that couldn’t be written off. It was the sound of a chain clanking. “Let’s get out of here!” Black whispered.

“There’s bound to be loose metal,” Navy reassured Black. “Look, there’s a bunch of lighting fixtures just hanging by their wiring. That’s probably what we heard.”

Black swallowed their fear and followed Navy. “So… what… what happened to the siblings, then?”

“That’s where the whole satanism angle comes in. The younger sister stopped showing up to school, so police did a welfare check. Didn’t find either of them, ever, but did find a pentagram decorated with shed snake skins and candles in the basement. I’ve even heard rumors that they saw tracks that looked like some kind of massive snake had been present. Rumors are she summoned a serpent demon to get revenge on her brother and it swallowed them both up like rats. But rumors are stupid, and once you get above where people have trashed the place, it’s gorgeous. Look, the carvings are in better shape up here. The door latches are snakes too!”

They entered what appeared to be a master bedroom, where there were the rotted remains of a massive four-post bed sat. Each of the posts was carved as a coiled serpent. This room was surprisingly intact compared to the rest of the house, even having unshattered original mirrors hanging.

Navy advanced into the adjacent bathroom. “Look at this, I can’t tell if they’re original era or restored, but it’s the old Victorian chain style pull toilets. Wow, even the bathtub has snake feet,” Navy said, snapping more photos. “If I had the money and a place to put it, I’d hire someone to pull this out and take it to my place in a heartbeat,” Navy sighed, admiring the craftsmanship. There were dried leaves inside it that had come through a broken window, but Black and Red knew Navy was imagining what it would look like full of water in the old days when it was in use. “Whoever built this place was hardcore. It’s gorgeous. If the historical society cared about anything other than the grandparents of their current rich donors, they’d have snapped this place up for preservation. Hey, hey, careful of that peeling wallpaper. If it’s original, it might contain arsenic.”

Once Navy was satisfied crawling through every room, even trying to take some old clothes out of a closet only for them to turn to dust in their hands, the group decided it was time to head out. In the darkness, as they descended the third-floor stairs, Red tripped over something. They landed hard, flat on their belly on the dirt and rat feces encrusted wooden floor of the second story.

“Whoa, whoa, you okay?” Navy asked, cautiously making their way to Red and helping them up.

“I think my nose is bleeding,” Red sniffled in pain. “What did I trip on?”

Navy used their flashlight to illuminate the stairs. A black chain had been stretched across the stairs, right at ankle height. “Was that chain there when we went up?” Black asked.

“It had to have been, we must have just been lucky enough to avoid it on the way up. You heard how those stairs creak. There’s no way anyone could have gotten up behind us without us hearing them.”

“I think I’ve had enough,” Black whimpered.

“Not until we’ve seen the snake room and the basement with the so-called pentagram,” Red said, pulling out some tissues and wiping off their nose.

The snake room was in the far back of the first floor, where the only other item of interest was a rotted old piano. They tried hitting the keys, but over half of them no longer worked. The snake room was… not as impressive as they’d imagined. It was all just broken old terrariums and glass cases in a large room with a glass ceiling. Most of the ceiling had been broken out with branches falling over the years or teenagers throwing drunken parties at the house, and the glass repeatedly crunched under their feet as they explored.

“WHOA!” Black screamed, backing up as a small snake slithered across their foot.

“That’s a harmless little ordinary snake,” Navy laughed. “It’s kind of cute when you look at it.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Black snapped in return.

“Well, this is boring,” Navy said. “All 1970s and later construction.”

“That means all we’ve got left to see is the murder basement, right?”

“Murder basement. Sounds like… fun.”

Black almost thought that Navy and Red were going to abandon the idea of going into the basement, as the stairs going down into it were twice as rotted as the more stable stairs in the upper parts of the house. They weren’t giving up on the idea, though.

“Ew, this basement is so… seventies,” Navy said in disgust. “Look at this disgusting carpet!”

“I know, it’s so moldy,” Red coughed.

“I meant, it’s synthetic shag,” Navy snorted. “Come on, there’s supposed to be an unfinished section in the back where the pentagram is, and the disappearance is supposed to have happened. If it ever happened at all.”

They found it in the far back of the basement, almost hidden behind an old furnace. “Well, fuck me. There is a pentagram and snake skins,” Red whistled. “Look at all these funky symbols.”

“Yeah, but some local idiot could have put those here AFTER the rumor started,” Navy pointed out.

“There are claw marks on the walls,” Black said nervously.

“Oooooor ordinary scratches that only look like claw marks because you’re nervous,” Navy tried to reassure Black.

“My nose is running again,” Red sniffled in annoyance. “Does anyone have any tissues? I used all mine,” Red continued as a few drops hit the floor, splattering directly on the dull red lines that made up the old pentagram.

“Yeah, I think I do. I… I… I….” Navy stammered, taking several steps backwards.

“What? What’s wrong?” Red asked, clearly not seeing the massive black shadow that was rising behind her, crawling out of the Pentgram by gripping the concrete floor with clawed fingers. Glowing red balls covered the things’s body, and it took Navy a moment to realize… those were eyes. Dozens of eyes. It was a tall, thin man … no, not a man. A tall thin man-like creature with the lower body of a snake, covered in glowing eyes, reaching out for Navy’s friend.

.

“Police continue the search for two local teenagers who disappeared after leaving their houses on Tuesday night without the knowledge of their parents. Attempts to ping their phones have been inconclusive, as the phones appeared to be moving rapidly through the city throughout the night, indicating a problem with their connection to the towers.”

.

Dressed in her favorite black hooded shirt, Amber Twine leaned back against the basement wall of the snake house. Being sixteen for the last forty years hadn’t been the worst thing. It was so funny how none of the teachers even recognized her, no matter how many times she re-enrolled with a new last name at the high school. That must have been part of the demon’s power. No matter how many times she played the ‘new girl’ at school who would coincidentally hear about the snake house and convince friends to sneak into it with her.

The ordinary snake that had ‘startled’ her earlier ran across her foot. “Isn’t this great, big brother? I made another sacrifice to the snake demon, so we get to spend another ten years stuck on Earth with you trapped in that body, you murdering bastard. I hope you’re having fun crawling in the dirt and eating bugs.”

.

Forty years earlier, she had kneeled before the massive black snake in the Victorian outfit. Her summoning circle had worked. His dozen red eyes looked down on her, as if amused by her small size. “Great snake demon,” she said. “I beseech you. My brother killed my parents, and all my father’s snakes. I wish for you to devour him slowly, letting him remain fully conscious while you swallow him whole.”

The snake had placed one gentle hand under her chin, long pink fingers clasping her jaw and drawing her eyes up to meet his face. “My dearest girl. Death is so quick. There are things that last far longer than death,” he’d said to her with a smile. Looking around, he let out a small chuckle. “This used to be my house. What strange fate.”

“What… did you have in mind?” Amber had asked quietly.

.

“Hey, bossman?” one of the Egg Bois asked as Sir Pentious made his breakfast, humming happily to himself. “Do you have two more eyes now than you had yesterday? They’re kind of runny, like they’re crying.”

“Do I?” he asked calmly in return. “I’ve lost count.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to explore the idea that the eyes on Pentious' tail aren't just eyes. The idea that they're captured souls seemed terrifying and creepy enough to me.


End file.
